New Delhi:
So, yes there is apparently also a thing called poo donors. As it turns out, much to our obliviousness, blood and organs aren’t the only things that you can donate but also your ‘waste’, stool that can be donated. In fact, there has been a recent increase in demand for the ‘waste’ as donations banks run dry of healthy stools.
At present, fecal matter transplants are used to treat clostridium difficile infection – a bacterial condition in the gut, which causes anomalies in regular bacteria and allows dangerous organisms to emerge. Scientists claim the disease can effectively be "cured" within days of a single faecal matter transplant (FMT) treatment.
Associate professor Andrew Holmes, a microbiology expert from the University of Sydney’s Charles Perks Centre, FMT was ‘spectacularly successful’ in treating clostridium difficle-associated conditions.
‘’Effective cure can be seen within one to two days of a single FMT treatment, and it seldom requires more than three treatments’’
‘’Fear of missing out is a bigger problem than fear of faeces. And if you bounce back to health after treatment, no one is likely to hold it against you for whatever shit you ate’’ he added.
The procedure is reportedly taking off in Australia where healthcare with poo clinics popping up across the country in the hunt for healthy stools. Experts now add that the demand for the treatment has actually led to a stool shortage. In fact, the need for poo donors in Australia has become so great that poo transplant clinics are appearing, some operating as ‘poo banks’ so people with healthy guts can go and deposit their donation to help those in need.
Professor Thomas Barody, who runs the Centre for Digestive Health in Sydney, told news.com.au that poo banks need more healthy stool supplies. But of course, this shortage shouldn’t mean anyone running late could go and use the ‘poo bank’’ for a quick relief. Potential donors are screened, with about 1 in 12 found to be viable who can then become regular contributors at the poo bank.
The poo\donation can be dropped off at the centre and the stool is then used either in a direct transplant via an enema in the anus, or turned into a pill form - which Prof Barody refers as “crapsules”.
At the moment, it's only been been used to treat clostridium difficile-associated disease (CDAD).
